


all that is hidden

by nasimwrites



Category: Chronicles of Narnia - C. S. Lewis
Genre: Backstory, Deep Magic, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-31
Updated: 2019-08-31
Packaged: 2020-10-04 08:03:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,755
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20467730
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nasimwrites/pseuds/nasimwrites
Summary: The Lady seeks victory over God, Time, Love and Earth—and loses, again and again.





	all that is hidden

**Author's Note:**

  * For [metonomia](https://archiveofourown.org/users/metonomia/gifts).

I

In the early days of the world, the soil was soft and unspoiled and everything was silent… until the Great One lit the skies, marked the land with footprints and named it—named every creature that moved and brought each shuddering to life.

But she, who was born in the shadow of his absence, feared the Great One too much—the rumbling of his footsteps, the lightning in his eyes, the blinding brightness of his face. When she was called, she clung to the shadows cast by his light, dug her heels into the earth, dreaded the removal of darkness.

And so fear was the first thing to take root in her, and it overtook her.

She retreated deep into the soft earth, the first of the hidden things in that dark place. And even as words and songs erupted over the land, now marred by the footsteps of those who wandered, she cowered in the silent depths, to hide and to be forgotten.

On the surface, the Great One turned his mighty head. He called a second time—and a third, final time.

Into her silence, he spoke: _Then let all that is hidden, remain hidden_, and was not seen again for a thousand years.

II

Nameless, she had no prescribed form, and so her body lengthened and narrowed, until she was cold like the earth, quiet like the earth, but not quite one with the earth. And the roots of fear coiled tightly in her heart until she coiled like them, and so she learned to feel resentment, and hatred bloomed where nothing else could.

It was so that she began to hunt for bright things, for she loathed them even as she craved their warmth. The lands above were sunlit and within her reach, but even without form she felt those that roamed there recoil from her namelessness, and greedily draw enchantments to keep the brightness within.

Enchantments, she found, could not stop her.

Fire she chased out from the deep, for it was the closest thing to the Sun, and in it she found the power to break, to scorch, to burn away. The flames grew her shadow beyond the confinements of her darkness, until she towered and dominated the space.

_If it was not given to me, then I will take it for myself, _she said. And she thought the fire more powerful than the lightning-bright mane or the Sun itself, a brightness that could be harnessed, that could cause the deep to tremble until it shook the lands above.

She saw, then, how weak they were as they roamed above. Names had enslaved them to their bodies, to their voices and to their Kings, and it was only she who was truly free.

The earth hardened, yet still the bright things called to her until she dug her way upwards and seized them for herself. She took their emeralds and their silver, strands of golden hair from where they caught on cruel branches, the glistening eyeballs of insects and glowing drops of poisonous sap. All these she gathered to herself, and laughed at the futility of a life above and the glory of her own in the darkness.

…

Time Himself came to rest in that place, then. He was the first to sleep Beneath, and in the soil he had carved his prophecy. He made her domain his grave, away from the living things.

He laughed when he found her treasures, a great maw opening in the darkness. _What can a nameless thing flaunt, other than the trinkets of the purposeful?_

_Power_, she said, digging her heels into the crumbling soil. _And the will to be free._

_Power cannot be both spurned and harnessed_. _If the Source is hidden, from whence shalt the flame be born? _There was a rumble that made the very rock vibrate, like it had on that first day. _There is no power without history._

_I shall spark my own flame_, she said.

_And thou shalt cease to be, long before I rise again._

_Many come down_, she told him, and felt venom rise in her mouth. _Yet few return to the sunlit lands. _

But Time’s eyes had closed, and the silence of his sleep swallowed her words and any meaning they may have carried.

III

Soon, mere brightness did not satisfy her. Fire was strong, but it did not beget life, and she began to hunger for the spark that lived in creatures’ eyes. For centuries, she dug between fire and earth and built eyes of her own from the clay—millions of them, with bodies and voices and _purpose_—and through her power, willed that brightness to life.

But nothing bright lived in their bulbous bodies, and their voices could only try to imitate her own words, their purpose mere mimicry of the beauty she craved to capture and consume. The gnomes built her a kingdom, but it was a silent one—a tomb for hidden things, where even Time had come to be forgotten.

She took to roaming the surface again. And that was how she met the brightest thing of all, beside a glimmering fountain. The brightness of the water was drowned out by the body that rested beside it: a sun captured in fair, delicate flesh. Yet when the eyes opened the golden light inside was so stunningly reminiscent of what she longed to forget that she could not contain her terror, or her lust for it—and before she knew it, she had crushed it, leaving only death behind.

Overwhelmed by her destruction, she barely glimpsed what followed—but then, there he was: golden hair alight, eyes piercingly bright. Blessedly, there was another. A shard of star within a man.

…

_What is your name?_ was the first thing he asked when he awoke, his memories now buried far within him. She had no answer for him, or any new name to gift him. And so, she was no longer the only nameless one.

She fed him her venom through kisses, learned to sing for him and change her shape for him, and in his forgetfulness he knew no brighter purpose than to adore her. He did not remind her of the world that had been kept from her, for he could not remember it. He learned only to crave its splendor and dream of possessing it. And from his brightness, she drew her own light.

She hated him even as she loved him, and she enslaved him because she feared him—feared him too much to do anything else.

One night, as she lay her new cheek upon the softness of his golden hair, he named her. _Lady_, he called her. _My Lady._

His adoration was enslavement, and yet it clawed deep into her. And somehow, her hatred of him turned onto herself—onto the purposelessness of her existence, the weakness of her own love, the hunger that bound him to a metal chair each night and watched him shriek in agony. Sometimes, she nearly ordered the gnomes to take their pickaxes to her skin. _If only some light could be dug out, _she thought. _Some light that went unnamed, but must exist inside me_. Perhaps then she would find something that was not so hungry—something that could not be so easily diminished.

When these thoughts overtook her, she tied her Prince tightly to the chair until the shackles cut into his wrists, that he may feel as small and impotent as she did. And when he screamed, she curled up in his lap and felt herself take over the entire room.

…

She built an army. With a man made of starlight, she would command the named and submit the sunlit world.

IV

One night, in the deeper places of encrusted soil and rock, she watched the ground open with a weary crack, and in the column of fire that burst through she saw the Salamander, its burning eyes searing pain into her skin.

_This is the place of the Deep Magic, _it hissed. _Of the things that were hidden._

_I will hide no longer, _she replied, and she felt her skin burning. Some distance away, her gnomes dug tunnels and shaped weapons from the fire. _I will take the power that was kept from me._

_Darkness does not overtake light, _said the Salamander. _It spreads only in light’s absence._

_I found a light of my own_, she said, but even as she spoke, doubt shivered down her throat. Light against light—but it was not _her_ light. The Prince could kindle nothing, only love and envy, and it was all but a pantomime. She was not his Lady. She was nameless—and to be nameless was to be nothing.

_This is the place of the Deep Magic, of the things not yet named, _the Salamander said._ Among this brightness, a name may be found._

And it seemed to flicker aside, the wall of flames parting—a fire that built even as it burned. Before her she saw a path of searing brightness invite her forward. In the distance, she thought she heard a call, reverberating back thousands of years to the beginning of the world.

But there was a sound of digging in the distance, and she knew the Prince awaited in his chair, submissive before her power, ready to lead her army to victory—the product of centuries of scavenging, years of rebellion, an eternity of hatred condensed into an act of war. Without this hatred, what would remain?

Through the eyes of the Salamander, she saw the same golden light of that first day, and she hated it more than she had ever hated anything before.

_I do not want your pity—your shackles_.

The Salamander flicked its tongue. _Linger too near to the light, and it will reveal your darkness. _

And then it disappeared, consumed by the flames.

The ancient earth rumbled all around her, and she shook with it. _Many come down_… the firm soil seemed to whisper, and it sounded like a curse.

…

In the light of pale lanterns, hosts of gnomes dug upwards in silence, until soil fell in large blocks around their heads and gathered at their feet. Slowly, the air changed and the tunnel narrowed, and suddenly before them a thin crack opened in the earth and a splinter of bright sunlight fell through.

But the gnomes, unused to light, shrieked as one in terror—and flinging their tools to their feet, fled back into the silent darkness.

**Author's Note:**

> I took inspiration from the legend of the Huldra, and from “could sleep for centuries” by metonomia (one of my favorite stories EVER).  
All my gratitude to WingedFlight for the amazing beta help!


End file.
